


Promise

by adolescence



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Because I Really Fucking Can't, Cuddles, Dealing With The Fuckery of Season 12, Hurt Sam, I needed to write this, M/M, Past Kidnapping, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spooning, They Don't Blatantly Ignore Everything That Happened To Sam Like In Canon, They're Trying To Deal, Torture, With Lucifer, hand holding, references to past torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 02:54:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8354116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adolescence/pseuds/adolescence
Summary: Some fluff-ish(? I don't know what to call this) and stuff to help me get through these last couple of episodes, because what the actual butternut squash? Feels much? :c Originally posted on tumblr: http://codepenkronk.tumblr.com/post/152141952545/promise





	

“What happened to you?”

The question Sam had been dreading hesitantly left his brother’s lips in a fashion that made his chest constrict and tighten, a lump forming in his throat that made it impossible for him to manage any sort of intelligible response. He had to take a step back from his own body, concentrate on how to breathe. It was almost like the Cage all over again; not nearly as severe, but all of the same symptoms were there.

One of the worst was when the flashes would start. When his body would ache even though Castiel had healed all of his physical wounds. When he could still feel the sharp, pricking sensation of a blade of one type or another sliding across his skin, or the torch burning his flesh. Sometimes, if the pains got bad enough, he could even smell his skin being cooked.

It was nauseating and awful.

What was worse is that he thought all of that was over. After returning from the Cage, after getting all of those memories back, having Castiel siphon them away because they were actually killing him. After going through all of that - the flashbacks, the visions, the hallucinations, the torture - after getting better. Surviving. He thought it was over. That he wouldn’t have to deal with any of that ever again. That he could have some small piece of his mind to himself again.

He had told the British bitch that he’d been tortured by the Devil, which was true. Nothing she or really anyone else could ever do could even compare to the amount of pain and suffering Lucifer had inflicted on him. He’d had his skin stripped off of him, piece by piece, until he was nothing but a bloody, screaming mess, just for Lucifer to heal him and start again. Over and over. Lucifer had worn Dean’s face as he reached inside of his chest and wrapped his hand around his heart, literally breaking it. But he would never really die. Not for any long period of time, anyway. He’d come back, because the Cage wouldn’t let you die. Hell was never that kind. It was built to punish those who hurt and sinned during their life topside after they died, to collect the debts of those who had sold their souls. It was for souls whose bodies had died.

Sam had been hurt in so many ways. Some that, to this day, he couldn’t comprehend.

All to say this: the torture he had been getting from that bitch was child’s play. Almost as bad - in technique, in skill - as when Cole had kidnapped him a couple years back and beaten him, thinking it would draw out his demon brother. Though Cole had fewer resources, both didn't even come in the same spectrum as Lucifer.

But it sparked that part in his mind that had laid dormant for almost two years. The dangerous thoughts that had plagued him for so long. He had even begun having intimate relationships again - short lived as they were, they were still a big step for him. Letting someone touch him like that again, being able to touch someone in that way. Being able to look at his naked self in the mirror after a shower, or after patching himself up in areas he didn’t want Dean touching, even if every time it had been somewhere that would be considered innocent regardless.

If anyone, Dean should have been the only person he let touch him, but even that had been too much. Dean had always been understanding in that regard. Pushing Sam, but only in healthy ways so Sam wouldn’t stop himself from making progress, but never taking too much.

Like now as Dean stood at a distance - Sam was sitting on the edge of his bed, his shoulders slumped, and Dean was near the door which he had pushed closed with his boot. It wasn’t like Dean was scared of him, or unsure, he was just being careful, letting Sam come to him. A part of him was grateful for his thoughtfulness, but another part of him wished that he would just come over here and throw his arms around him.

He wished he’d do that and that they’d just stay like that for awhile.

“What did it look like?” Sam asked, quiet. He looked over at Dean.

Ever since he’d seen Dean, he had this look in his eye. Like he knew how broken Sam was. Or was trying to understand. Or maybe he was trying to figure out how to fix it because that had always been his job. Sam couldn’t figure it out, but it was the same look he gave him after he finally managed to bounce his soul from the Cage. Sam hated that look. He hated it so much.

Dean’s lips pressed into a line, a small frown tinging his face as he shifted his gaze down. “Like she roughed you up somethin’ awful.”

“Yeah,” A small laugh bubbled up from Sam’s chest. It wasn’t funny, but here he was. “Something like that.”

“Listen, we need to talk about this. To move passed it. Help you deal with it.” Came Dean’s gentle reply.

That was the exact opposite of what he wanted to do. He wanted to forget for a little while and enjoy his own, comfortable bed, his warm sheets, the company of his brother, not relive everything he’d just went through. “I don’t

Want to. Not right now.”

“Well, we need to.” Dean persisted, voice still soft and tender like Sam would break if he didn’t. Like that would be the last straw to his sanity.

“Why, of all times, do we need to talk about this right away?” Sam asked, agitation growing, spreading rapidly.

“Because we never do, Sam!”

There it was.

“And whose fault is that?” Sam snapped, his irritation getting the better of him. Dean looked taken aback. He sighed, relinquishing the defensive walls he’d put up. “Look, I’m sorry, Dean. I just- it’s been-”

“No, Sam. I know. I’m sorry.” Dean interrupted him, hands up to silence his younger brother. “You’re right.”

Dean began walking over, small step after small step. When Sam made no move to retreat, to get away from him, he continued until he was by the bed. Carefully, he lowered himself onto the edge. The bed was big, so along the edge, and just in total, it was plenty of room for Sam to feel comfortable. There was at least a foot and a half between the two of them, even though to Dean it felt like miles. Like he was no closer to Sam than he was when he had no idea where that British bitch had taken him.

“But I think we should, y’know…” Dean trailed off, eyes on the floor again before flicking up to catch Sam’s gaze. “Change that.”

Sam raised his eyebrows to some degree, but cast his gaze down to his lap and furrowed them.

“We always do this crap where we just- well, don’t talk. We keep things to ourselves, hide them.” Dean prompted solemnly. “It’s never, not once in the past thirty-some-odd-years, worked out for us. It gets people hurt. It gets us hurt. It gets you hurt.” He sighed, letting his eyes close. Dean could still see the way his little brother looked when he took the first few steps into that dingy basement. How small and weak Sam looked with blood on his face, his shoulders and chest from various wounds. Sweat soaking his shirt. The way he was trembling, even if just slightly. Dean had practically raised the kid - he knew Sam’s body well enough. There was a look behind Sam’s eye, the one he got sometimes, but Dean hadn’t seen it in awhile. It was just this blank, vacant, like no one was home. “And I just-” Dean’s voice broke, but he swallowed and continued, looking over at Sam as he did. “And I just can’t do it anymore, Sammy.”

Sam had to search Dean’s face as his brother spoke, read his lips and make sure he wasn’t imagining them. That he was actually hearing him correctly. His eyebrows knitted together empathetically. Everything Dean was saying was true. Everyone their lives touched subsequently led to their death, one way or another. But Dean, him, and Castiel had more lives than cats, had been resurrected more times than anyone should. They always caught the break, but as for everyone else… not so much.

The both of them had known this since the beginning. Even before all of the deaths. Concealing things, letting them fester inside their heads and manifest in the physical world… that just never worked out for them. It always ended with chaos, more problems they knew how to fix, and in more than one case, the freaking impending apocalypse.

Taking a deep breath, and swallowing back the acidic bile that started to snake up his esophagus, Sam scooted over. Just a few inches, but it was enough for the two grown men to look marginally closer to one another. Tentatively, Sam reached out, his hand finding Dean’s and fitting his own in his.

Dean glanced down at their joined hands, then back up. He threaded his fingers and gave a small squeeze, his lips twisting into a ghost of a smile.

“I will, Dean,” Sam managed, voice not quite all there, but not wavering too bad. It got a little worse, though, as he went on. “I will talk to you about it, okay? Just not tonight, Dean. Please.” He gave Dean’s hand a plea of a squeeze in return. “I’m tired.”

Dean seemed like he might protest, but he stopped himself before he did. Slowly, his brother nodded, and relief washed over Sam.

“Promise?” Dean asked.

Sam didn’t want to talk about it now, didn’t want to talk about it anytime soon, and perhaps that was years of having to push down his emotions talking, but he knew he should. It was something he’d given Dean grief about in the past, after all he’d been through with Hell and the Mark and being a demon. Talking it out. It sounded ridiculous now. It always did, each and every time he was in the position instead.

But he needed it. He knew he did. And if not for himself, maybe for Dean.

“I promise.”

Dean’s smile grew some. “You’re not just sayin’ that?”

“I’m not,” Sam shook his head a little. A few stray strands of hair fell from behind where they’d been tucked behind his ear and fell into his face. “I promise I will. I just need some time to think, to sleep… it’s been a long few days.”

“Yeah, Sammy,” Dean sighed. “I know it has.”

Silence fell over them. It was a comfortable, thoughtful kind of silence. Sam itched for more contact. His brother was okay. His brother was safe. He needed okay and safe right now.

“Hold me for a little while?” Sam asked softly.

Dean raised an eyebrow curiously. “You sure?”

Sam nodded. “I need you.”

Dean’s hand slowly slipped from Sam’s as he took off his boots, and Sam followed suit, watching as Dean climbed further onto the bed until he was on it properly, up with the pillows. Sam didn’t follow after right away, prompting Dean to rub the area on the bed in front of him in steady, circular motions while his other arm was propping him up on the bed. Beckoning, reassuring, not rushing. A small smile twitched at Sam’s lips and he crawled up the bed to his brother, looking at him for a moment before slipping in next to him, facing away.

Sam breathed through it, as Dean snaked his arm around his waist and slowly pulled him close against him. He had to squeeze his eyes shut, fending off the thoughts that threatened to ruin this good thing.

By the time Dean’s breath was on the nape of his neck, a sense of calm washed over Sam, allowing him to relax.

It was so good to be home.


End file.
